The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) puts out lots of public requests for scientific research, including high-profile competitions involving robotics and space launch tech. But today, the agency tweeted a very simple plea: it needs a massive, maze-like underground facility for running experiments, and it needs it right now.
LIVINGSTON, La. — About a mile and a half from a building so big you can see it from space, every car on the road slows to a crawl. Drivers know to take the 10 mph (16 km/h) speed limit very seriously: That’s because the building houses a massive detector that’s hunting for celestial vibrations at the smallest scale ever attempted. Not surprisingly, it’s sensitive to all earthly vibrations around it, from the rumblings of a passing car to natural disasters on the other side of the globe.
As a result, scientists who work at one of the LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) detectors must go to extraordinary lengths to hunt down and remove all potential sources of noise — slowing down traffic around the detector, monitoring every tiny tremor in the ground, even suspending the equipment from a quadruple pendulum system that minimizes vibrations — all in the effort to create the most “silent” vibrational spot on Earth.
There are many famous innovators in the Western world who have a bold vision, go after massively transformative projects and despite investor and public criticism deliver on their promises. Jeff Bezos, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, and Steve Jobs are household names who went against the current, pushed their vision through and succeeded touching everyone on the planet and making the world a better place.
Since the passing of Steve Jobs, the crown of the bold inventor, innovator and high-tech businessman passed to Elon Musk who despite frequent criticism is the undisputed leader of disruptive entrepreneurship. However, when I ask some of the most informed westerners in my network to recall one global entrepreneur with an Asian name disrupting their life in the same positive way and at the same scale as Elon, very few can recall anyone besides Jack Ma, Dr. Lee Kai-Fu, or Dr. Ge Li. Even fewer would be able to name the exact contribution these people made to their health and wellbeing. For example, few people know that Dr. Ge Li’s companies that act as global open research platforms assisted in the discovery of many of the cutting-edge life-saving treatments that are benefiting everyone on the planet. There will be books written about the transformative role of these people in the future and, hopefully, Netflix documentaries.
But there are many great innovators and entrepreneurs, who are working on bold new ideas and technologies that will change everyones’ life in a very impactful and positive way but are not known to the general public in the West. These innovators often face criticism from the investor community which wants to see business models and projects that they can understand, projects they can believe and get the immediate returns. Like Elon Musk they face a lot of resistance but over time prevail and will impress every one of us. They will go down in history as pioneers and their names will be known in every household.
MOUNTAIN VIEW (KPIX 5) — A Silicon Valley 3D printing company has been awarded a contract with NASA to launch a project creating a satellite that will manufacture and assemble itself in orbit.
A top NASA administrator visited Mountain View’s Ames Research Center Monday and toured state-of-the-art facilities of Made In Space. NASA awarded Made in Space a $73 million contract to launch Archinaut by 2022, an “autonomous robotic manufacturing and assembly platform.”
Jim Bridenstine, the space agency‘s top official, called Ames a “jewel” and praised the work of Made In Space as “impressive.” The manufacturing company 3D prints structures, parts, tools and more while in orbit.
Posted in particle physics, quantum physics, space
Gravity was the first fundamental force that humanity recognized, yet it remains the least understood. Physicists can predict the influence of gravity on bowling balls, stars and planets with exquisite accuracy, but no one knows how the force interacts with minute particles, or quanta. The nearly century-long search for a theory of quantum gravity — a description of how the force works for the universe’s smallest pieces — is driven by the simple expectation that one gravitational rulebook should govern all galaxies, quarks and everything in between. [Strange Quarks and Muons, Oh My! Nature’s Tiniest Particles Dissected (Infographic)].
Movies featuring heroes with superpowers, such as flight, X-ray vision or extraordinary strength, are all the rage. But while these popular characters are mere flights of fancy, scientists have used nanoparticles to confer a real superpower on ordinary mice: the ability to see near-infrared light. Today, scientists report progress in making versions of these nanoparticles that could someday give built-in night vision to humans.
The researchers will present their results at the American Chemical Society (ACS) Fall 2019 National Meeting & Exposition.
“When we look at the universe, we see only visible light,” says Gang Han, Ph.D., the project’s principal investigator, who is presenting the work at the meeting. “But if we had near-infrared vision, we could see the universe in a whole new way. We might be able to do infrared astronomy with the naked eye, or have night vision without bulky equipment.”
NASA’s Hubble Telescope snapped an incredible photo of a dying star that had astronomers confused.
The NASA picture seems to be showing a bright nucleus surrounded by two stellar bodies that are known as NGC 2371 and NGC 2372.
Posted in space
This new frontier of space remains fraught with some hard realities.
European Space Agency astronaut Alexander Gerst, Expedition 40 flight engineer, enjoys the view of Earth from the windows in the Cupola of the International Space Station. A blue and white part of Earth is visible through the windows.
To celebrate NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope’s 16th birthday, the Hubble Space Telescope team decided to put together a special present for their fellow “observing buddy.”
Hubble and Spitzer have observed many of the same astronomical objects over the years; and with Spitzer getting data from infrared, and Hubble getting data from visible, ultraviolet, and some near-infrared, the two telescopes have helped uncover some of the mysteries of the universe.
For more information, visit nasa.gov/hubble.
The Goal of Gateway Foundation Von Braun Station is to build a dual-use station that is economically self-sustaining.
